Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Fracking Creates Massive Radioactive Waste Problem

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) openly
acknowledges that fracking fluid contains “thousands of chemicals”, but
nowhere is there mention of radioactivity in its risk assessments. Now, a new
study reveals the “natural gas” industry may be hiding a secret as dark and
deadly as the one the nuclear industry has been trying to conceal for
decades.

Titled
“What’s NORMal
for Fracking? Estimating Total Radioactivity of Produced Fluids“, the new
study tested the hypothesis that fracking wastewater contains the same
naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) found in the shale deposits
that it is produced from as a drilling byproduct. The primary radionuclides of
interest include 226radium, 210polonium, and 210lead,
which are decay products of 238uranium and 228thorium,
and which are normally safely locked away deep within millions of years old
geological formations.

The
study focused on the heavily drilled Marcellus Shale, a vast swath of marine
sedimentary rock found in eastern North America, and which is known to have
about 20 times higher levels of radioactivity from high uranium content
compared to most other shales.[1]

In 2010,
the uranium deposits within the Marcellus Shale were identified by University
of Buffalo researchers as being susceptible to being solubilized and
made mobile by fracking fluids. The researchers determined that when these
fluids inevitably come back to the surface in the form of millions of gallons
of wastewater they can pollute streams and the ecosystem with hazardous waste.

The
new study confirms the above mentioned concerns. Researchers at the University of
Iowa obtained a 200-liter drum of fracking wastewater obtained from the
Marcellus Shale region in 2012. The sample was measured for existing levels of
radioisotopes, and then estimates were made for the total radioactivity that
would be produced within the fluids in the future if left within a closed
space. They confirmed the presence of radioactive radium, polonium, and lead.
They also measured an increase in the decay products 210lead and 228thorium.
Finally, they determined that the radioactivity would continue to increase for more than 100 years due to
the formation of the decay products of 210lead and 210polonium.

This
is not the first time that a radioactivity problem with fracking wastewater has
been cited in the published literature. For instance, a report published in Environmental Science and Technologyin
2013 found that fracking wastewater discharge by the Josephine Brine Treatment
Facility in Pennsylvania lead to 226radium concentrations that were
approximately 200 times higher than normally expected in stream sediments near
the facility.[2]

Fracking’s Radioactivity Could Be As
Dangerous As Nuclear Power’s Releases

Clearly,
the “natural gas” industry has a new PR nightmare on its hands. Already there is a
growing public awareness that fracking is an extremely destructive and
non-sustainable method to extract energy from the earth, uses and contaminates billions of gallons of water annually,
and may even contribute to increase seismic events like earthquakes. But
until now few if any realized that the fracking/natural gas and the nuclear
industry share the same dark secret that they both routinely release significant
quantities of radioactive waste into the environment whose toxicological
implications last for centuries, if not for thousands of years (e.g. 222radium’s
half-life is 1600 years).

The
releases are not just the byproduct of accidents. The nuclear power industry
actually releases highly carcinogenic plumes of radioisotopes into the
environment during the course of normal operations. For instance, they
routinely schedule government approved releases of up to 500 times higher than normal levels when they refuel their
reactors. Even the coal-powered power plants produce millions of tons of
radioactive waste, which we recently touched upon in our exposé on the possible
use of coal fly ash for covert geoengineering progams in the U.S.
and abroad.

In
many ways, as evidenced by the Fukushima multi-core meltdown, the problem with
radioactive waste contamination is so profound and widespread that for the most
part the media won’t even touch the issue. To the contrary, nuclear power is
often described in the mainstream media as a “cleaner” form of energy because
it does not produce the same carbon emissions as fossil fuel-based forms. This
suffices to distract from its true harms to human and environmental health.

Given
the widespread problem of denial, it is not surprising that present day
fracking regulations do not account for radioactivity at all. The EPA, in fact,
focuses on drinking water and groundwater contamination by the admittedly
“thousands of chemicals contained in fracking fluid” as the most salient issue,
and determined in its 2015 fracking risk assessment that while it did find
evidence that fracking has caused contamination and does pose a risk to drinking
water resources, “the number of identified cases where drinking water resources
were impacted are small relative to the number of hydraulically fractured
wells.”[3]

The
truth is that low-dose radioisotope exposure no matter what the specific source
of contamination has been proven to be several orders of magnitude more dangerous to
health than present day radiological risk assessment standards presently
specify. This is because health risk evaluations are based on gamma-radiation
associated effects, based mainly on outdated observations of atomic bomb blast
survivors from WWII, long before DNA and low-dose radioisotope mediated DNA
damage was even discovered. Uranium, however, being an alpha particle and not a
gamma radiation emitter, can have up to 1 million fold increased toxicity to DNA than would be expected
by its radiolytic decay alone. The implications of this are astounding, and
speak to just how dangerous releases of radioisotopes are when looked at
through the lens of a more nuanced, modernized, and evidence-based risk
assessment lens.

The
truth about low-dose radioisotope exposure’s true risks have been hidden for
quite some time, including by the tobacco industry, who knew as far back as the
1950’s that the contamination of tobacco with polonium was driving high lung cancer incidence in
smokers but refused to admit it because addressing the problem by
removing 210polonium would have reduced their product’s nicotine
content, addictiveness, and therefore profitability.

This
new study should help to bring to the awareness of the public that there is
absolutely nothing natural about the “natural gas” industry, and that fracking
may combine the worst outcomes of both the fossil fuel (petrochemical) and
nuclear power industries, as far as the ultimate forms of damage wrought upon
human and environmental health. Now that the wastewater from fracking is being
used to grow food, it is all the more pressing that we become engaged and
active on the issue — that is, unless we don’t mind being force-fed fracking
chemicals and radioactive material in our produce in the near
future (although conventional produce may already be blasted with nuclear waste
to “cold pasteurize it.”)

The
time has come to take a stand and withdrawal all support from energy and
agricultural production models that result in the atrocious toxic fallout of
this kind.

INVESTIGATION: Secrecy surrounds new CSG chemical

THE vast
majority of the ingredients in a chemical used in coal seam gas drilling operations
have been kept secret from the public since its importation into Australia was
approved in late 2014.

Manufactured
in the United States by chemical giant Halliburton, the "Chemical in
Duratone HT" was approved ahead of an assessment of its potential health
and environmental effects in July last year.

But
assessment documents show the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and
Assessment Scheme gave Halliburton extensive concessions under commercial-in-confidence
rules to keep information from being made public.

Those
exemptions, which protect companies' commercially sensitive information,
allowed the chemicals giant to keep secret about 95% of the chemical's
ingredients.

While the
results of human health toxicology and environmental toxicology studies were
provided, the actual studies of the chemical's potential effects were also
deemed "exempt information".

Environmental
group National Toxics Network's senior adviser, Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith, said
the information that had been publicly released was "to put it bluntly,
bugger all".

"Even
Halliburton's own documents about this chemical show that certain local environmental
regulations do not allow it to be used," she said.

"They
themselves acknowledge there may be a problem with this chemical, so how dare
they (the regulator) give them confidentiality over 95% of its ingredients and
then give us a document that tells us virtually nothing?"

The company
has also produced a more environmentally friendly product that does a similar
job as Duratone HT, called Duratone E, but has not applied to import it to
Australia.

"How
come we have a chemical where even the producers know that some environmental
regulators say they can't use it, the company has even gone about producing
something less harmful, but the government allows them broad
confidentiality?" Dr Lloyd-Smith said.

EXPLAINER: WHAT IS FRACKING?

HYDRAULIC
fracturing involves the injection of a "fracking fluid" into a coal
seam via a well in order to crack the coal seams below ground to release gas.

It
usually involves a mixture of about 97-99% sand and water, which is mixed with
chemicals that help open up the fracture, keep it open, and keep it free of
debris.

A
2014 report said only about 6% of all wells drilled in Australia in 2013
involved the process, but in Queensland, the practice is tipped to grow up to
40% as the industry expands.

Documents show Duratone HT, a "filtration control agent", comes in
25kg bags of powder that contain between 60% and 100% of an unknown
"notified chemical", making up about 95% of the active ingredients.

The only
known ingredient in the powder was crystalline silica, or powdered quartz,
which was reported as an "impurity" that comprises up to 5% of the
"notified chemical".

That
substance is found in bricks, cement and other building materials.

It can cause
lung cancer and is listed as a "hazardous chemical requiring health
monitoring" by Safe Work Australia.

A
"typical application" of Duratone HT in a single well would include
between 1620kg and 5400kg of the powder mixed with "other
ingredients" to create the injection fluid.

The chemical
can be used in offshore and onshore drilling operations, but it is unclear
where, when or how much of it has been used in Australia's CSG industry, as
such information is not publicly reported.

A
Halliburton spokeswoman did not respond to ARM Newsdesk's questions.

But a recent
submission to the regulator said the company regards "the protection of
confidential information from public disclosure" as of "critical
importance", and such disclosures could erode the firm's "overall
reputation and market position".

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1 comment:

I read a couple years ago, that the fracking industry in CA, would soon collapse as federal energy authorities slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California's vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national "black gold mine" of petroleum.http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil-20140521-story.htmlObviously, the policies of CA fracking are giving lip service to the people against fracking, and propping up the financiers an investors of fracking in CA. As they will go bust, unless the charade continues and our economy is already based on illusions. This despite a major drought. The world is awash in oil. Oil tankers now sit idly at sea ports. Yet we have been hammered with the message of peak oil. Please read about abiotic oil. Is "fossil fuel" just another lie we have been fed?http://www.viewzone.com/abioticoilx.html

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